Thrasher - Appalachian Trail Journal - 2010

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Right before sunrise

KATAHDIN!!

This morning we woke up really early to hike up Katahdin to see the sunrise. We woke up at 1:30 and signed in on the board at 2:20. We then proceeded to hike in the dark (we had our head lamps of course.) The stars were so bright and beautiful! We got really lucky because there was a meteor shower going on the night before and the night we hiked. A few time at would stop and watch the sky. We were able to see several meteors fly by. I don't think either of us had ever seen anything like that before. I wish our camera could have captured the moment but I don't think any picture would have done justice. The climb up at the beginning was not to bad...there were a lot of stone steps. It wasn't until we reached tree-line that the rocks got more abundant with harder climbs. We went up this one area that seemed almost impossible but we did it and actually later when we came down we realized that there was another way that we could have gone to avoid it. I don't know if it made it harder or if it was better going up in the dark. I am not to trilled with rock areas that go straight down on both sides but in the dark I couldn't see it. Then again when we went down we saw that there were once again alternate routes that were easier. Anyway...we made it to the top just before the sun rose. It was so exciting and as we were approaching the sign and could see everyone I got tears in my eyes and said to Thrasher "this is really it, we're gonna be done." Even just thinking about it now brings all the emotion back. There wasn't many people up there...4 other thru hikers and 3 day hikers. We were able the take a ton of pictures and had a 2nd breakfast. We sat behind a rock area to block the wind as we ate and watched the sun rise. It was beautiful!!! It was a great way to end this journey! We hung out on top for quite some time. As other thru hikers we knew came up we would cheer for them and then sit there in awe that we were done. It's so hard to even explain the morning. In total we had 15 thru hikers summit today and out of those 15, 7 of the were girls! So we sat up there until more day hikers started to come and it got pretty busy around 10:30. We decided to head down around 11:30. We took our time going down since we didn't see any of what we had gone up that morning. We had awesome views until we hit tree-line. Once we got down we got our stuff from the Ranger station and headed to the main (well the only road) to hitch out to Millinocket. We met everyone that we had summit with and even a few more hikers at the AT cafe to have one last dinner before most of them went on there way. We plan on staying in Millinocket until our flight on the 18th. I don't know when it will hit me that we are done...just kinda feels like were in town for some zero days.

-Turkey

Entry 87 of 87
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